Mytery of a martial art's grip

[Guest CalvinP]

Twenty years ago, I 've met a young man of small statue with even smaller hands. After we'd discussed about martrial art, one thing lead to another we'd ended up testing each other hand' strength. His hand felt small in mine, I thought I was going to crush it easily. But after the initial brutish grunt from me, I could not advance any further to win. In fact! He came back and I began to feel the pressure from his hand increase with time. As if he was able to sustain the level of his power and even increased it as I decreased mine. He did not hurt me, but sure he took all my cockiness away and replaced it with respectfulness.

I had asked him how could he have generated such power from a small hand like that? (His hand is shorter/narrower than mine, and mine's only 7.1/2" in length max). He 'd told me he had been practiced something like Qi-cong or Chi Cong kung fu (Chi means air or breathing). Meaning he used only bare hands with controlled breathing. He would do a horse-stance with one hand moved forward with a claw like spread. Then he would slowly close it all the while mentally imagine there's a brick that he was crushing.

The mental part is hard to keep up. There's nothing to gauge the improvement too. But the surprise part was he'd only been practicing for 6 months. That was the last time someone with a smaller hand almost beat me.

No! I did not pursuit the Qi-cong technique then. But I'd think it would complete many parts of a gripper work out. We have read about how the olympians would use mental imaging technique to add an edge to it. It tells me the brain and the heart can potentially make a man  much stronger!

 

[Guest woody36]

I watched a film once that featured  king- kong, he

waved his hands about,but only in self defense.

He had big hands and a serious Hair problem,second

only to Robin Williams. Rumour had it that despite

his great strength,he too had trouble cleaning the

Inch Dumbell,but he did get it to just past the knee

which was a good thirty or forty feet.

[Guest CalvinP]

I too once watched in PBS a docmentary about gorillas. There I 've seen a silver-back male gorilla, he must weighed approx. 400-500 lbs. He just walked up a big bambo "tree" using hands and feet, casually like a man strolling in the park. Then when he got near the top, he reached out then grap a top part (same bamboo tree) above him and snapped it like a small twigg. The bambo must be at least 2.5" - 3" in diameter. Then walked back down to the ground on 3 limbs just as easy. Now that 's a serious grip. No wonder "Gorilla Hand" is strong.